A Little Surprise
Posted on February 14, 2010 - Filed Under Guatemala, Personal | 4 Comments
Today, I headed into the Dispensa, a local supermarket that offers lower prices than the ever popular Bodegona, and stocked up on meat for the next few weeks. I found some chicken for Q8.40 a pound, so I scooped up all four packages (around here you can never be sure of finding the same price on the meat, so you have to get it while you can) and added three pounds of ground beef to my basket. Six cans of tomato paste later, I was standing at the checkout where the bored cashier slid my purchases across the scanner, seemingly oblivious to the fact that they were leaving a trail of chicken juice on her counter.
The cashiers at the Dispensa usually aren’t that friendly. They tend to be a depressed looking bunch that do their jobs, but nothing more. They’re not mean, but not nice either.
This cashier finished up with my chicken and ground beef, asked dully if I wanted a bag and fished two out from under the counter when I told her (here you pay 25 centavos per bag). Then she grabbed something from under the counter and tossed it on top of the bags, looked again at the basket and said, “I’m going to give you some bags to keep the juices in.” and proceeded to rip off a handful of thinner plastic bags, handing them to me and she didn’t charge me for those, which is unusual.
I thanked her, took my change and went off to pack . . . noticing that the thing she’d thrown into my basket was a guacal or small plastic bowl used to scoop water out of the pila. I looked around. No one else was getting a guacal. The guy behind me in line had looked surprised when she tossed it into the basket and I’ve never seen anyone at the Dispensa give anything away unless they’re having a special sale, so I really have no idea why I got this little gift . . . maybe for buying so much chicken?
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4 Responses to “A Little Surprise”
Talk to Me, People!
Hey, they gave me one too! But that was over a month ago. I go to the Dispensa at least once a week. Once they also handed me a long garland of detergent samples and on another occasion I got a tupperware type bowl with cover.I’ve also looked around if anybody else gets these surprises…zip! Only me! This week I didn’t get any though…they probably saved the guacal for someone specific who’d buy 4 packages of chicken and 3 lbs of ground beef and 6 cans of tomato paste. Had you added something like Tortrix or cotton buds, you wouldn’t have gotten it. Oh isn’t it great? I love getting surprises… I go to the Bodegona at least once a week too, just for the fresh herbs and their great selection of ham… but I never got a surprise… just spoiled milk
You may be nicer to the cashiers than they are used to. The unfriendliness may be defensive and you didn’t give her anything to defend herself against. We’ve lived in a couple places where we’ve been told that we ‘overtip’. Actually, we tip like we do anywhere… about 15% for good service, 20% for excellent, and nothing for horrible… but it’s enough. We’ve been given free coffees and desserts in restaurants, extras from delivery guys, delivery guys who make a return trip without being asked if they forget something simple (seriously.. we’ve had sodas forgotten by hurried pizza guys, and forget telling them to forget it – they make a return trip!) Just smiling and being nice – when it is unexpected – goes miles, even if personal gain is NOT the goal. How nice for you to be surprised like this
That’s cool that people go out of their way to do stuff for you! Once we asked the local tienda to deliver some groceries, among them, nacho chips and a bag of nacho cheese. Well, they delivered everything but the cheese . . . then came back about 20 min. later with cheese, saying that they’d had to run into Antigua to buy it because the store was out and what good were chips without the cheese!
It really does help to be nice to people.
Ugh, the Bodegona is just awful, half the stuff there is spoiled! I definitely prefer the Dispensa, even with less selection . . . but the little surprises are great, too! Pay less, get more.
That also trumps my gringa theory . . . since you fit right in around here.